A repeat of Election 2000?

An interesting possibility in November: Mitt Romney gets the most votes but President Obama wins the election.

It could happen. It did happen 12 years ago, when Al Gore rolled up 50,999,897 votes, 543,000 more than George W. Bush did. But Mr. Bush won the election (with an assist from the Supreme Court).

If Obama wins a second term with fewer votes nationwide than Mitt Romney does, a lot of Republicans will be upset. They praised the Electoral College in 2000 for saving the nation from a Gore administration, but they might have second thoughts if it works against their party in November. Would Mr. Romney accept that sort of outcome as graciously as Al Gore did in 2000? Letís hope so.

Anyway, itís time for another explanation of what the Electoral College is and does.

When the Founding Fathers fashioned the Constitution, they were only lukewarm on the idea of democracy. They did not want the people to have any direct say in choosing their senators or the president, the most important figure in the new Constitution.

So the first five elections, from George Washington to James Monroe, were decided by electors chosen by the state legislators, not by the people. Each state had the same number of electors as it had in the Senate and House of Representatives.

And so it is today. The American voter is usually surprised to learn that he or she is not voting for president and vice president, but for a list of obscure individuals who comprise the Electoral College.

U.S. senators are now elected directly by the people, thanks to the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913. But the Electoral College still stands, as was shown so dramatically in the 2000 election.

Aside from its power to override the popular vote, the Electoral College has another significant potential role to play in disputed elections. To win the presidency, a candidate must get more than half of the electoral votes ó 270 now. If no candidate gets that number, the decision goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, where each state has one vote. The vice president would be picked by the U.S. Senate.

Could that really happen? It has twice ó in the elections of 1800 and 1824.

Could it happen today? It might if some third party managed to carry a state. It doesnít happen often, but itís worth noting that in 1924 Robert La Follette carried Wisconsin and its 13 electoral votes, that Strom Thurmond won 39 electoral votes in 1948, and that George Wallace won 46 in 1968. Any of those results could have prevented the main candidates from an Electoral College majority. That would have sent the final decision into the House of Representatives, each state having one vote. It blows the mind to imagine the politics that would ensue.

One of the virtues of the Electoral College is that it makes it difficult to organize a viable third party. Ross Perot won 19.7 million popular votes in 1992 but no electoral votes. Many analysts believe that it strengthens our two-party system and the stability of the government.

In 1800, a fluke in the Constitution gave Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr 73 electoral votes each. That put the decision into the House of Representatives. It took some hard political bargaining to finally put Jefferson in the White House.

The 12th Amendment eliminated that particular flaw, but in 1824 a four-way race between Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William Crawford ended with none of the candidates getting a majority of the electoral votes, although Jackson most likely won the popular vote. The decision then went to the House of Representatives, which had enough Whigs to elect Adams.

The Jackson backers were furious and got their revenge four years later when Old Hickory was elected in a landslide.

After the Bush-Gore election in 2000, an organization was formed to prevent another such outcome. The National Popular Vote proposes that all future presidential elections will be decided by the popular vote, regardless of the electoral vote count. It will not affect the election in November because it has been ratified by only 11 states (including Massachusetts), representing a total of 132 electoral votes. It will go into effect if and when the figure of 270 votes is reached.

But questions about it remain. Would it be constitutional? It is not an amendment to the Constitution, which specifies that ďthe Person having the greater number of (electoral) votes shall be the President.Ē The NPV is an attempt to bypass the Constitution. Nothing like that has ever been tried before. Would the Supreme Court have to decide the issue?

Of course, things may turn out differently than I have imagined. Itís possible that Obama will get a majority of the popular vote and lose the election in the Electoral College. That would give a big boost to the NPV campaign.

I have the feeling that the Electoral College will be with us for a while yet. And thatís probably a good thing.